No offense but if it sounded better than the SP3000 it would be priced accordingly.
The advantages of the CA1000T is a ton of more power to drive over the ear headphones, so in some ways the CA1000T will sound better than the SP3000 with full sized cans.
It will also depend on your preference between the tunings. Not to mention that SP3000 is a portable player whereas the CA1000T is a transportable DAP/All-in-one.
I would disagree. DAPS are made with one aim, how to bring desktop quality sound in a pocktable format".
CA1000T pricing is not done purely on how good it sound (I hope not). It is a totaly different product, its designed with not having to worry about one strain, which is ultra portability.
For the price of SP3000 I can built you an entry high end desktop dac/amp setup.
I would disagree. DAPS are made with one aim, how to bring desktop quality sound in a pocktable format".
CA1000T pricing is not done purely on how good it sound (I hope not). It is a totaly different product, its designed with not having to worry about one strain, which is ultra portability.
For the price of SP3000 I can built you an entry high end desktop dac/amp setup.
I'm sure A&K is factoring the costs of advertising, materials needed and the costs of the newest DAC/processors.
They have a hierarchy in their portable offerings, the SP3000 is currently at the top of that pyramid and it would make sense that it is priced accordingly. The ULTIMA line IS their top of the line for portable players.
That doesn't necessarily make the SP3000 the best A&K player, the CA1000T has some clear advantages which is why I'm gravitating towards it.
A friend of mine spok to Ultima engineering team in Japan and they openly said that SP3000 is the maximum they can push a portable dap and they simply cannot push it any further. There is simply no more space to optimize the sound.
This is they they release the PA10. If it sells well, they will start doing developement on higher end portable AMP, based on pushing the limit of Alpha tetra amp circuit.
SP3000 going to be their flagship for a very long time.
A friend of mine spok to Ultima engineering team in Japan and they openly said that SP3000 is the maximum they can push a portable dap and they simply cannot push it any further. There is simply no more space to optimize the sound.
This is they they release the PA10. If it sells well, they will start doing developement on higher end portable AMP, based on pushing the limit of Alpha tetra amp circuit.
SP3000 going to be their flagship for a very long time.
Great, perhaps I will have a chance to try a SP3000 in the future, I've previously had all the other Ultimas and they're all premium players but I ended up preferring the iBasso DX320 over all of them.
@JasonNYC Hi, how would the AK PA10 pair with IEMs? I have the HiBy RS2 and plan to pair the PA10 for on the go use.
Will there be any issues like hiss, low performance... E.t.c. when pairing low impedence IEMs.
Also, since the RS2 only has 3.5 Line Out, I'm stuck with using Un-Balanced Out of PA10, is there a power difference or sound quality difference between it's 4.4 Out & 3.5 Headphone Out. Thanks.
This was written by a Polish dealer regarding the sound difference between the CA1000T and SP3000:
"For me personally SP3000 is better regarding the DAC implemented, it sounds smoother and little bit more delicate (for someone it can be too soft or lack emphasis on vocals or wind instruments). CA1000T on the other hand exceeds amplification abilities of these semi-portable devices and can control almost any proper headphone.
They both represent top level sound yet it depends how portable you want to be."
That certainly makes sense, considering that the CA1000T has an ESS chip.
However, I would be interested to know what the Korean reviews on YouTube say. Unfortunately there is no translation in English. Can someone perhaps summarise?
Your guess is right: ESS Chip is supposed to be the most analytical and uncoloured. I can definitely confirm that my ADI 2/4 Pro SE (ESS) is more analytical than the SP3000 (AK).
This was written by a Polish dealer regarding the sound difference between the CA1000T and SP3000:
"For me personally SP3000 is better regarding the DAC implemented, it sounds smoother and little bit more delicate (for someone it can be too soft or lack emphasis on vocals or wind instruments). CA1000T on the other hand exceeds amplification abilities of these semi-portable devices and can control almost any proper headphone.
They both represent top level sound yet it depends how portable you want to be."
That certainly makes sense, considering that the CA1000T has an ESS chip.
However, I would be interested to know what the Korean reviews on YouTube say. Unfortunately there is no translation in English. Can someone perhaps summarise?
By the way if you go to the video I linked above, even though the captions are in Korean, you can click the 3 dots on the bottom right hand corner of the video and click "Show Transcript", afterwards just turn on the web browser option to auto translate the page in English and you will then see a rough translation of the captions transcription.
It is still a bit hard to make out since these are rough translations but he is clearly just summarizing his opinion of the CA1000T.
I see this morning that A&K’s UK website shows it as ‘in stock’. The last time I looked it said ‘no stock’. Also at least one UK dealer says it has stock now. As a very happy CA1000 owner there is no doubt I will be adding to basket sooner rather than later
I see this morning that A&K’s UK website shows it as ‘in stock’. The last time I looked it said ‘no stock’. Also at least one UK dealer says it has stock now. As a very happy CA1000 owner there is no doubt I will be adding to basket sooner rather than later
I just preordered mine from Moon Audio here in US. It says it has an availability date of February 6 instead of February 13 that is on the A&K website.
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